As an aid to a better understanding of certain features of our invention, it may be noted that situations occur where the normal heart action of the patient is insufficient to supply the patient's bodily needs. As an example, during operative or post-operative periods, which may last for as much as some 5 or 6 hours, there well may be a lack of sufficient muscular activity within the heart itself to supply sufficient blood. This may derive from trauma, ischemic shock or post-operative shock. Or it may derive from a general overall deteriorating condition of the patient.
It is our view that the substantial decrease in heart activity, or even a virtual loss of such activity, derives from an incompetent or diseased left ventricle of the heart. Actually, it is our thought that, in many instances, the action of the left ventricle is wholly insufficient to completely discharge its contents. Pump failure of the heart is the basic physiologic defect of the diseased heart affected by severe myocardial infarction due to coronary artery disease.
Although many efforts have been made in the past to overcome the deficiencies of an ailing heart, we find that, for one reason or another, these efforts have not been entirely satisfactory. In some instances, the apparatus involved have been too expensive or too complicated. And, in others, they are found to be insufficiently reliable.
An object of our invention, therefore, is to provide a method and device for overcoming the deficiencies of the prior art, and assure effective movement of blood from the incompetent heart, and discharge the same into the aorta, and thence into the arterial tree in safe, reliable and efficient manner.